Endless Pylons

I hope the Mayor of Montreal sees this painting, after proclaiming that orange pylons would be banished from Montreal! Its a scene looking along the Concorde Bridge towards downtown. The nice thing is they finished paving the bike path after many years of working on it, so the path was silky smooth. Traffic was actually moving along the bridge, the pylons seem to be there instead of road lines. Not sure... 

To paint Endless Pylons, I started with the road, bike path, and side of bridge, along with the river underneath. Next I filled in the sky and tree-line, with building details in the background. When dry, I applied the pylons over top of the road using a mix of benzi orange (PO62) and pyrol orange (PO73), which I call "Montreal Orange" because it replicates the exact shade of pylons. Its looking like there will be a lot of orange this summer!  

Endless Pylons, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Tulips and Montreal Orange construction

Spring is a time for colourful flowers like these orange and pink tulips, with a few yellow dandelions in the grass. Its also a time for construction signs and pylons.... "Montreal Orange". Its a mix of benzi orange paint (PO62) and red-orange paint (PO73). To do this painting, I worked up the colour highlights first, then filled in the sky, bridge, and middle-ground. Today, I used a separate brush to do the sky with phthalo blue (PB15) and blue-green (PG7), so as to keep the other brushes clean. Since I started cleaning the brushes after every trip, I noticed how much phthalo blue remains in the brushes, and it makes the bright colours difficult to achieve, especially yellow and orange. So today, the colours were really popping in my paintings. 

Tulips Cartier bridge, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

It was pretty disappointing today... the boardwalk that oversees Old Port was completely blocked off for construction, every other street downtown was construction, and the bridges connecting to Notre Dame Island were completely blocked off. I was hoping to get to Notre Dame Island to paint the flowers and flowering-trees. You can see my post from May 3 2025 on the location. So instead I made another tribute painting to Montreal... Construction blocking the Concorde bridge with sage advice on the signs. 

Montreal FU construction, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Spring flowers and greens

Down in Parc Gédéon-De Catalogne (st Henri) near the Lachine canal, there is a long and narrow park with landscaping, including a long ess-shaped garden with hundreds of flowers. At this time, white and yellow daffodils were coming up, along with a few red tulips in the background, and some magenta ground cover flowers in the bottom right. The lawn was done with bright yellow (PY184) and green (PG36), when dry, over-painted with green and yellow hatch marks for texture. 

 Daffodils st Henri, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, May 2026

 

This scene is Viger square, which is built over top of the rte 136 underground highway. There was a noisy seagull cawing at me. Two trees with very different shades of green are in the background. The left tree is mostly done with bismuth yellow (PY184) dabbed with yellow-orange (PY110) or dilute green (PG36). On the right, the tree is dilute perylene green (PBk31) overpainted with a mix of perylene green and regular green. The lawn is bismuth yellow with regular green. It was nice to practice painting green again!

Shades of green noisy gull, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

In the same Viger park, I turned and painted this scene of a bench painted with 'Land Back'. It was a great place to stand and paint... good sight lines, and a warm sun falling on the scene. I had almost forgotten what shadows looked like with all the overcast weather we have been having. 

Land back bench, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

It was also good to see the water flowing down st Lawrence river, its been frozen for ages it seems. This view is looking upstream from Old Port, you see the Concorde bridge which connects Montreal to st Helens Island. After, I would ride across that bridge towards the island. 

Concorde bridge spring, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

No garbage

Taking a bit of a ride after the office, I headed down the Maisonneuve bike path and made a quick painting near the Girouard underpass. This sign is posted at the alley behind a car mechanic, I just liked the contrast, and the interesting textures on the brick wall behind, which was covered in graffiti. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny for once, I hope to get some good Spring scenes done. 

No garbage, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Spring... even pylons turning green

Trees need lots of rain in the spring but how about liquor? This tree had a small plastic liquor bottle wedged in its branches, as if it were taking a swig. Its down at the Fort street ramps, part of a small park called Ernest Cormier Esplanade. I was hoping there would be flowers, but maybe this kind of tree wont make flowers. Its only half the tree shown. 

Spring tree drinking, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Even the pylons are turning green this spring! I spotted some rare green and orange pylons down near the Notre Dame and Peel construction site, it seemed essential to paint them. Usually the pylons are orange and white, sometimes with magenta or black. This location is where the highway underpass starts, and many signs.

Green and orange pylons, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

Its a sign of summer more than spring... orange traffic signs and construction. This one is part of the massive upheaval around Peel street downtown, but the site is up on st Antoine cross with Cathedral street. I made the background deliberately confusing, like WTF, or where am I? The orange is a mix of PO62, with dabs of PO73... I call it 'Montreal Orange'

Cathedral st Antoine construction., watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026

 

Spring palette, thoughts on Winnipeg

After rebuilding my entire colour palette during the pandemic year, its been pretty much stable for the past several years. In the paint-out above you can see the range I use on location. Top left are earth paints, top middle are cool shadow paints, top right are green range, bottom left are highlight colours, with a blob of black paint off to the right. I keep a few within the mixing areas, like raw sienna, pyrol orange, indo blue, and for the Spring I carry bismuth yellow for depicting new foliage. So there are a little over 20 paints here, with some duplicates. The scribbles are the pigment codes, which are usually marked on the tube somewhere. I go to Jane Blundell's website to look up pigment codes and paint names on her colour swatches.  Also Handprint.com by MacEvoy has a tome of knowldege in his guide to watercolours page. 

Winnipeg surprised me with its subtle colouration. To be fair, I was there in Spring about a week before the green started to come out, so things were rather dusty, or rather sandy. The earth around Winnipeg comes from the great plains, grassy lands, its a sandy colour the same as raw sienna. They use this sand to put on the snow in the winter, so streets and parking lots were still covered in it. Moreover, the bricks of many older buildings were sandstone... a yellow ochre tone that could be easily made with variations of earth paints. There are prominent trees... not too tall, fanning out like mops pointing up, and with scraggly branches. They were painted with raw umber a dark brown, and indo blue to create greyish brown. Its the first time I ran out of brown paint on one of my palettes. I bring two palettes when I travel now so as to not run out. In the painting above, I mixed various yellow and brown colours, and called the painting Winni-beige, a play on words. 

Winni-beige, watercolour 9 x 12" watercolour paper, May 2026
 

Night Goose

With night falling upon Montreal, this hopeful goose thought I might have some handouts. It seemed slightly mad to paint a goose at night under a lamp next to the Lachine canal, with a train bridge and creepy looking tree in the background. Eventually it wandered off. Geese fly up to Canada to feast on grass and insects, then fly back down south for the winter. There were lots of geese in Winnipeg, which was neat, I painted two geese flying over the red river. To do the grass I made a three-part blend of lime yellow (PY184+PG36), neutral green (PBk31 plus the lime mix), then dark green (PBk31 + PG36). When dry, I overlaid the grass texture using various colours so as to create the illusion of a lamp illuminating grass. As I painted this, the thought occurred to me: "What the heck am I doing?" Lol, I quite like this painting. 

Night Goose, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, May 2026